Wow! Very impressive!
The math behind Mage Wars is extremely complicated. We use over 70 spreadsheets to govern the math. We called in a team of programmers to help refine and finalize the algorithms used. In the end, it's what held Mage Wars up the longest.
One of the challenges was determining how much are the attack dice and armor are worth. The value of the attack dice is based upon the armor of the target. If typical creatures in your games have high armor, then the value of each additional attack die becomes exponential. If most creatures have armor 0-1, then additional attack dice tend to "flatline". The typical armor of creatures will depend upon who you are playing, and the creatures available in the set, their mana cost (frequency of appearance) and their durability (how likely they are to remain in the arena). The actual formula by necessity has iterations in it based on these factors, and in the end is really more of a "good calculated guess supported by playtesting results"!
The values for Flying, Fast, Incorporeal, are similarly based upon how effective they are based on current creatures and attacks. For example, if 70% of attacks are Ethereal, then Incorporeal has a lot less meaning. Or, if your opponent is usually low on ranged attacks and flyers, then a single buffed flyer can wreak havoc against him.
The value of each creature trait is dependent on who you are playing against, and the likelihood of encountering creatures or spells which work well or poorly against their traits. The math shifts slightly too with each new expansion release, as new traits and abilities change the relative values of past traits. To some degree the math is based on Mage Wars as a whole, including sets that won't be released until 2013.
Another interesting challenge was determining how to scale mana cost based on creature size. If 2 creatures both have the same attack, but one has twice the Life, how much more is that worth? Certainly not double,or else you could buy 2 of the smaller creatures for the same price, who would be dealing 2X the damage. We originally used a logarithm to scale creatures, so that as they double in durability or effectiveness (attack) their value increases by 60%. Later, as new methods were introduced making it easier to control larger creatures effectively, and as guarding evolved so that smaller creatures were more important, we had to change our scaling to use a square root so that the increase was closer to 41%
The real value of a creature depends upon your own spellbook synergy (what works best with the other spells you have), and what the other player is going to play. However, all of that being said, it is important to determine some average value for each trait, attack, and creature, so that mana costs are in a
reasonably fair range, and
consistent. In the end, that's what we tried to accomplish.
I am impressed by the math being done here and I am curious what conclusions are drawn and what players think!